Graveside Roses
by Spirit-hime
Summary: When Helios summoned Mamoru to help him rid Elysian of a pest problem, Mamoru had no idea of what he was getting himself into. One-shot/complete.


AN: This was written for lover_youshould in the sm_fanswap group on LiveJournal. Her request included Mamoru and Helios and, tacked on at the end, a wish for zombies. I thought it would be fun to try and make that combination work. Enjoy.

"But what ARE they?"

"Just keep moving!"

He thought that he could see a bit of the pegasus that Helios had once been when he ran. He moved with a swift grace that seemed almost inhuman, his white clothes catching the pale moonlight in sharp slivers of light. He barely seemed to stir the tall grass when he moved, and his footsteps practically whispered through it, and sometimes, when the shadows turned just right, it looked like he was taking flight. Mamoru felt clumsy by comparison. Though his long, athletic legs could easily carry him through the valley as quickly as his companion, he did not exactly fly over the rough terrain so much as crunch through it, the undergrowth and fallen branches snapping and popping so noisily beneath his shoes that he was certain his every footfall could be heard for miles. "It's too open here! We'll have to lose them in the trees!"

Mamoru could see the dark, rolling shadows looming against the night sky that must certainly have resembled trees in the daylight. "I thought you called me here to fight these things, not run from them!"

"There are too many here!"

He barely had time to wonder what 'they' were. He had seen only shadowy figures, shifting on the edges of the grasses. The moon kept drifting behind the clouds, throwing the figures even deeper into shadow, and before he could study them further, Helios was telling him to run.  
So run they did, until the forest closed around them, and immense trees that had never encountered human tools towered overhead.  
Helios bounded onto a large boulder and looked around, apparently compensating for his short stature. He was a small, and almost fairy-like person, with fair skin and hair that would have been reminiscent of a Lunar native, if not for those golden eyes. Mamoru studied their surroundings as well, but he could detect no movement nearby. Still, he was uncertain how Helios could really tell whether every swaying silhouette was simply a tree or something more ominous. He was not normally prone to nervousness under pressure, but the unfamiliar sounds and smells of the forest at night, the distant sigh of the wind in the leaves and the creaking of immense trunks as they swayed, the layers of darkness in unknown shapes, made him feel unsettled. What he would not give for the clear structure of city streets, for sharp angles and concrete and blazing street lights.

He really was a Tokyo boy at heart.

"I believe we're safe for now," Helios concluded finally, looking at Mamoru for the first time since he had arrived. "I apologize for bringing you here so abruptly, Prince. This was not a matter for me to solve on my own."

"Just tell me what we're dealing with." Sometimes, Mamoru got the feeling that combat situations reduced his speech patterns to cliche phrases lifted from prime time police dramas. It was better than when he tried to get really creative, according to some of the senshi, as Mars had once threatened to, in her words, charbroil his tuxedoed ass if he tried to headline his entrance with one more morality speech on the values of love and and friendship and magical sparkly wands that blasted holes in things. He mostly let the girls do the talking, these days.

"Masses of these creatures. They appear in swarms, devouring anything living in their path."

"What about the shrine? Is it--"

"The shrine is well-protected. We were in no danger there. But their presence here is... unsettling." He gave Mamoru that tranquil stare that he was so good at. The dark-haired prince had to agree. Elysian was a holy place, never meant to be tainted by the footsteps of outsiders. The thought of it being invaded by monstrous creatures was... wrong, somehow. Horribly wrong. "Alright, but why just me? You know the senshi could have--"

Helios held up a hand, his head tilted as if he was listening to something distant. "Come, it would be best for you to see them yourself."

Mamoru reluctantly followed him over the crest of a hill. Below, the trees thinned out enough to allow the moonlight to stream brightly through. Something was moving down there. "What--"

"Shh!" Helios pulled him down behind some underbrush. "Just watch."

A shadowy form lurched slowly from between the trees. The silhouette looked vaguely human, but its movements were slow, unnatural, stilted. Was it injured? It shuffled aimlessly, its head pulled to one side as though blind or disoriented. And then the moonlight glanced down on it, and suddenly Mamoru felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Its pallid flesh was cracked and decaying, turning shades of green and yellow that no living flesh could have turned. What passed for clothing was nothing but muddied, wispy bits of cloth unraveling about the creature's gaunt frame. If it moved unnaturally, that must have been because it was broken in horrid ways, and Mamoru could see white, jagged bone protruding from its arm. And its face... Mamoru tried not to dwell on that part. There was not much face left to be seen.

He felt like he was going to be sick. No youma or lemures had ever matched this horrible sight. "How... how can that thing exist?" He whispered.

"That I am not certain of," Helios whispered back. "I had only small premonitions. A cursed star passing over our planet. The earth stirring where it should have been still. Some of the roses died where they stood, but their petals would not fall."

"Was that... thing ever human?"

Helios hesitated before answering. "I believe it was, yes."

"You said there were swarms of them?"

The priest nodded, his white curls bobbing in the moonlight. "Yes."

Mamoru watched the hideous creature. Alone, it looked rather pathetic, and not altogether threatening. It was slow, mutilated, erratic. With others.  
His thoughts froze there. Surely that shuffling noise was not coming from below. It sounded much closer than that. Much closer, and coming from behind.  
He whipped around, just in time to see a set of blackened teeth reaching for his throat. Mamoru's instincts kicked in, and before he had time to be disgusted by his proximity to the rotting face, he was on his feet and had smashed his elbow into its jaw. The creature reeled back from the force of the impact, but it seemed not to feel any pain, and immediately launched itself at him again. For a rotting corpse, it was awfully strong. Skeletal fingers dug into his forearms, teeth gnashed at his face as he struggled to push the monster away. "Might I suggest a weapon, Prince?" Helios' soft, ethereal voice sounded completely unruffled by the events taking place. Never mind that a zombie was about to eat his face off. Don't worry about your future king's welfare, or anything.

Weapon. Right.

Admittedly, Mamoru had never tried to use his roses at close range before. Usually, by the time an enemy got too close for him to be throwing flowers at them, he was already in the path of death, brainwashing or seduction, depending on the enemy at hand. Trying to throw a rose at something that was attempting to nibble his ear off quickly proved impossible. But there was no time to consider an alternative plan, as the creature seemed intent on munching on him, and he really did not want to find out what happened if it ever did manage to bite him. Without thought, Mamoru wrapped his hand around the razor-sharp, thorny stem of the rose, brought it up, and slammed it into the first bit of flesh it would encounter. It sunk easily into the decayed flesh of the creature's arm, but even this would not slow down its thrashing efforts. The creature lunged forward, forcing Mamoru to stumble back until he was braced against a tree.

"Prince, I believe that whatever energy is sustaining them, it is focused in the head. Perhaps if you..."

"Head. Got it." He braced himself for another strike, wincing as he felt the razor-sharp thorns cut into the skin of his hand.

A horrifying, wet sound echoed through the trees. Something sticky and cold oozed out between Mamoru's fingers. He let go of the weapon in disgust and shoved the creature away, where it tumbled down the hill onto its back, a red rose planted through its eye socket.

"Interesting choice."

"I didn't hear you offering up any ideas," he grumbled, glancing over his sticky hand in the darkness. He was really very glad that he could not see whatever it was that covered it. "Well, incidentally..."

Mamoru was not listening. He was watching the rose he had used shudder and drain suddenly of its color. The petals shriveled and dried, the stem wilted and head bowed. His weapon of choice, which never showed signs of age for as long as he had been using them, had just dried up and died. The creature stirred, and slowly attempted to pick itself up, the dead rose dangling ridiculously from its face.

"Wonderful."

"You may want to look around, Prince." Mamoru did so, not entirely sure whether he liked having Helios' 'helpful' comments or not. Sure, it was not the priest's role to be engaging in combat, but that only made him sound slightly less smug in his running commentary.

Of course, it was rather nice to have somebody nearby to alert him to the fact that he was quickly being surrounded by about fifteen undead corpses, all of which were intent on consuming his flesh.

"How did they all find us?"

"They seem to have heard you fighting."

"I'll try to be quieter next time one of them tries to chew on me."

"I should have mentioned, you might not want to let them bite you."

"Yes, thank you. Any other important facts you would like to divulge?"

"Well, as much as I hate to criticize your usual weapon of choice..." Helios was interrupted by Mamoru shouldering him out of the way to block a particularly large zombie from descending on the small man. He shoved the creature into one of its companions, and they both went stumbling backwards down the slope. "You were saying?"

"I believe you have another--Prince!"

Mamoru ducked out of a creature's grasp and kicked it away, just in time to yank Helios out of the grip of another and place himself between them.

"If you would just use--"

Mamoru gave up on roses. There was a thick tree branch at his feet. He heaved it up and swung at anything moving. A creature's skull made a sickening sound as the stick bashed into it.

"Well I suppose that's--"

Mamoru swung Helios around behind him again, determined to keep himself on the frontline of danger. The branch served him well at first, but it was ridiculously heavy and inefficient, and it was not long before his arms ached with every swing, and refused to move quite as fast as they should have. The swell of creatures was closing in on all sides, and he could barely lift his arms to smash against their heads fast enough.

"Oh, for--what kind of future ruler of planet Earth ARE you?"

The future ruler in question actually dropped his guard for a moment, forgetting all about the zombie hoards to face Helios completely. Were those words really uttered by the spritely priest of Elysian Shrine? "What?"

Helios stared at him. "Don't you have a sword?"

Mamoru blinked. It was not exactly something that he whipped out at parties to impress people. He honestly had it categorized in his mind as a relic, rather than a functional tool in dire situations. "Oh."

He swung his trusty branch full at the head of one of the monsters, releasing it as he did so. It smashed right into the creature's face with a sickening crunch.

The sword came easily to his hand, a brief flash of golden light the only announcement of its arrival. Although he was hardly in practice for its use, already it felt easy and lightweight in his grip compared to an unwieldy log. He thrust the blade cleanly through one creature's throat. Nice.

"You know," he stated calmly, ripping the blade back out to slice at the creature beside him, "I think I liked you better when you were a softspoken unicorn."

He could feel Helios glaring at the back of his head. "How about a pretty golden horn through your gut, would you like that?"

"Touché."

The monsters fell easily on his blade. Though they seemed to have no end to their life, whatever that life may be defined as, they were much easier to immobilize when limbs could be hacked off. But there were always more. For every creature he threw aside, there always seemed to be two more shuffling forward in its wake. He dared to glance past those immediately before him to see how many more lurching, shuffling creatures were still emerging from the trees below. In a word, lots.

"Speaking of sparkly unicorns," he began conversationally, as he hacked at an arm before it could close around Helios' throat, "I don't want to seem demanding or anything, I mean I know that comment was a little out of line..." he used his foot to push an impaled victim off of his blade, throwing it against a few other creatures and sending all three tumbling, "but their numbers appear to be growing here, and I don't foresee us breaking free to find safe shelter in the near future." One arm grasped Helios around the shoulders to pull him out of harm's way, while the other swung the blade around to stab at a creature standing where the priest had been not seconds before. "Not that I want to criticize my own stamina," he kept his arm around Helios as he whipped around to face the one grabbing at him from behind, "but I'm sure you can see where I may have difficulty keeping us both alive beyond the next twenty minutes." The creature dropped to the ground, joining the ever-growing pile of corpses that could not quite get themselves to their feet again. One was grabbing at his ankle, and he quickly stomped on it. Swinging a sword at something that cracked satisfyingly under his blade was actually a little cathartic. Mamoru had never considered himself a remotely violent person, but maybe he was wasting his efforts in track, and should have been taking kendo, instead. "I guess what I'm saying is, we could really use an escape route."

A particularly ambitious slice swept through a particularly juicy zombie. Helios, who had miraculously maintained his crisp white priest robes through the whole ordeal, looked down at the new splatter of red across his chest.

He said nothing, but the look that blazed in the boy priest's golden eyes when he looked up at Mamoru clearly read, "I can't believe you just did that, you royal ass."

Mamoru may have imagined the precise wording of the implicating gaze, but he muttered a sheepish apology for ruining the high priest's holy robes, and hoped that would cover it.

"Yeah." Helios side-stepped a monster for Mamoru to dismember, and produced a tiny bell that was not unlike the one he had once given a certain pink-haired maiden. The tiny, delicate sound that it produced could barely be heard over the groans of the undead. Surely nothing nearby could have caught its delicate chime.

A shrill whinny suddenly echoed through the trees. He really should have learned to stop doubting his guardian priest. Then suddenly it was white feathers and the distinct smell of horse. Glistening white hooves like bits of pearl struck down two creatures with a dull thud. Pegasus was so bright and glistening white that it was as though a piece of the moon had flown down to land beside them, immense wings fluttering and folding into place on his back. Helios climbed nimbly onto the horse's back, because, blast him, he still looked spritely and perfect even with his robes ruined by zombie blood. "Is this enough of an escape route for you?"

Mamoru wished he could shrug and be nonchalant about it, but at the moment he was still fighting off undead hoards. So he hoped his actions spoke for themselves when he fought his way through their grasping hands and scrambled gracelessly into place behind Helios.

The creatures clearly perceived the majestic animal as an appetizing new food source, but Pegasus had other ideas. Mamoru barely had time to grab Helios around the middle when the horse reared, nearly tipping a very unfortunate prince off of his back. When they were properly even with the ground again, the golden horn was dark and dripping with blood, and Mamoru decided that maybe he should not insult the pretty unicorn ever again.

"You may want to hang on."

"Thank you, oh holy priest. I am so glad that I have you around to provide revelations of the future."

Helios laughed, for the first time in maybe ever. "No, really." This time, Mamoru really might have been thrown off, if Helios had not grabbed the arm that held him around his waist and pulled it tighter, just as the ground disappeared suddenly from beneath them. Mamoru abandoned his sword, knowing it would return whenever he called, to cling completely to the small man and wonder how he could possibly be the only thing keeping him from being plucked right off of Pegasus' back. All he could see were white wings and mane and the stars above. He was unnerved by the fact that his feet were touching nothing, that all his legs could feel were the flanks of the horse beneath him, that the seat he tried to steady himself on was soft and muscular and constantly moving. There was definitely no worry about him forgetting to hold on now. He focused on trying not to crush Helios beneath his grip.

"I never expected you to have a fear of flying, Prince."

"I died in an airport, you know."

"You were still on the ground at the time."

"It still put a damper on things."

Helios' thin, warm hand clasped over his. He became aware that he had his fist clamped around a knot of the priest's robes, and wondered whether he should also apologize for possibly stretching the material. "We're almost there."

One agonizing flight later, Mamoru was disappointed to find himself still in the forest. There were fewer creatures here, but he could still see them, not so far off, lurching aimlessly in the moonlight. But the trees had thinned significantly, and the grasses were nearly overrun by a sight that was both unexpected and familiar: roses. Impossible amounts of roses. Their vines were thick and thorny, the blossoms open and heavy with their scent.

But what interested him even more was what glistened in the moonlight beneath the vines. Columns. Something had been here, once.

Whatever sarcastic banter had been in Mamoru's mind before faded completely. These were ruins. In his brief visits to Elysian, he had never seen anything destroyed or abandoned, never seen any indication of inhabitants besides the priest and his Maenads. "What is this place?"

"Take a look around you. Do you not recognize anything?"

The great stone columns reminded him of the Elysian Shrine, though they were broken and caked with moss and age. They were sunk into the ground, covered and grown over through the ages, and he wondered at their true height. He thought he could imagine great arched ceilings, gilded in gold and royal blue, high windows with stained glass panes thrown open on warm summer days, sturdy oak doors and mosaic tile floors. He moved to the nearest column and laid his hand on it. The rose vines coiled about the shattered columns, as though drawn to its warm, comfortable feeling of home. He knew the feel of it. A place of power and healing and protection. A home lost, neglected beneath the crush of time. He could feel its age beneath his fingers. The centuries that passed as the Earth slowly swallowed it into its embrace. Though the elements had stripped it of its grandeur, no pillagers had been here to destroy what little remained of what had once been the center of power on Earth. Elysian Castle.

Of course there had been no pillagers. There were no people in Elysian. Not anymore. Not since the fall.

He looked at Helios, and he knew. "This was my home."

He hesitated. He looked out at the monsters, which groaned and shuffled just as they all did. "Please don't tell me..." He already knew. There were no other people in Elysian. Where else could they have come from? "Those were my people."

The priest did not respond, and Mamoru knew he did not have to. He sank down onto a fallen pillar. The gardens had been here, once, where he was looking. They had sprawled for miles, exotic flowers from every corner of the Earth carefully cultivated by the gardeners, but none were so numerous as the roses. Now the other flowers could not be seen beneath the high grasses, but the roses, the symbol of his house, had long broken free of the garden walls, sprawling wild all across Elysian. He reached for one now, brushing his fingers against the deep red flesh of a petal. He knew where to avoid the thorns, only because he used them so often as a weapon against others.  
He had not been here to see Elysian crumble. He had been too busy witnessing the fall of a different kingdom to see the fall of his own.

The priest's voice was gentle. "You asked me why I only asked you to come here, and not the senshi."

"Must I destroy my people a second time?"

Helios sat beside him. "Not destroy. Only lay to rest. These are not the people that you knew. They are only shadows of the past, brought to unrest by a cursed star."

The thorns glistened in the moonlight. The monsters had noticed their presence, and were slowly shuffling forward. Soon, he would have to pick up his blade again, but he was not ready to do that yet. When he spoke, it was not as Mamoru, a young Tokyo University student, but as a prince of a long-dead kingdom. "I brought them here. I destroyed this place. If my people do not know rest, it is because I failed them."

When Helios looked at him, his golden eyes did not reflect the young boy that he appeared to be, but a priest who knew more years than Mamoru could imagine. "Endymion, we cannot undo the past. But we can show it the respect that it deserves. We can give it reconciliation. These people fell defending a kingdom they believed in. They should know that the land they loved is still thriving, that their king has not abandoned his people."

"And how can I show them that?"

Helios touched his arm. "Come with me." His white priest robes fluttered around him as he led the prince through the heart of the ruins. Mamoru noted what small trinkets of the castle remained as he passed. A piece of wall. A few steps of a winding staircase. Broken, fragmented pieces of stone. All of it overtaken by the roses, its grandeur lost beneath the weight of new life.

It was impossible to quite identify the original layout among the fallen walls, but now they reached what appeared to be a great circular room. The ground dipped down in a bowl shape, as though it had once had the shape of an amphitheater, and at the center, he could still see a low structure standing alone. Its precise shape was nearly lost beneath the thick tangle of rose vines that encircled it, but as they neared, Mamoru could see that it was a sort of low dais. Helios paused reverentially before it, hanging back as though afraid to touch it. "This was once the resting place of the Golden Crystal," he said softly. "It was where the newly-ascended king would first stand upon his coronation. It was a beacon of light in this world, a sign of the living king's majesty, and of his heritage."

He looked at Mamoru, every bit the regal priest that his post required. "I believe that you should use it. Bring light to your people again, and they will know rest."  
Mamoru swallowed. Above them, dark shapes were appearing at the edges of the bowl. If this did not work, if they did not act quickly, they would be completely surrounded again. He could not see where Pegasus had wandered off to graze. "What if I fail?"

"Well, then I suppose we will get eaten."

"You're not very good at these pep talks, are you?"

"Look, I realize the princess has to convince you of your capability every single time you have to do something remarkable, but how about you just assume this time that you have the necessary ability and save us both the trouble?"

The dark shapes were multiplying, and they were pressing in, a tide of darkness mounting on all sides.

All in all, Mamoru decided that he would rather not be eaten today.

The crystal came easily at his call. Each time that he saw it, he found himself struggling to describe the delicately chiseled crystal that bloomed in the shape of a flower, each petal refracting a million tiny stars of golden light. It hovered between his hands, glistening like a star. The moon smiled down upon it, its light somehow strengthened, rather than diminished, by the crystal's glow.

He could see the faces of the creatures illuminated by that flickering gold light as they steadily descended the slope. They were grotesque, horrible, hardly identifiable as human. He did not know whether it was appropriate to be amused that one of them had a rose sticking out of its face.  
They were advancing quickly, drawn by the crystal's gentle glow. The roses on the dais began to wither. In the center of the dais was a small groove that was precisely the right size in which to fit a flower-shaped crystal. Carefully, with as much reverence as he could show with zombies grabbing at him from all around, he lowered the crystal into it.

And suddenly, there was light. Light that was nourishing and healing and life-giving. Light that sank its fingers into darkness and tore it apart. Light that he could feel, warm beneath his skin.

He did not see it destroy the corpses. It was too blinding. But he thought he felt something pass over him, like a long sigh. And then whispers, so many whispers in his ears that were too faint to quite identify. They spoke of the past and the future. They spoke of endless strife and long-awaited peace. They spoke of life in all its beauty and pain, and of its eventual conclusion. And one whisper very clearly said, "thank you."

When the light dimmed and the crystal had returned to its proper place inside him, the nightmarish sight of the creatures was gone. The moon was bright. The grass stirred gently. The vines that clung to the dais bloomed with fresh buds, and not a single blossom appeared wilted.

Mamoru looked at Helios, who had the smugly calm look of a prophet who always knew the end to every story. "Next time," he said, "don't wait so long."

***

When Mamoru stepped through his mirror into the bedroom that Helios had so rudely summoned him out of, the golden light of dawn was beginning to crest in the east. He wanted a shower, and food, and other mundanity that might remind him that life existed in civilized pieces of Tokyo normalcy. He almost considered going to the nearest fast food restaurant, just to be surrounded by fluorescent lights and factory-produced burgers wrapped in three layers of unnecessary packaging. But what he wanted more than anything was a bed, and his pillow, and the sweet angel in pink bunny PJs who sprawled every one of her limbs out so that she took up as much space as such a tiny person possibly could. Her hair was a great sheet of gold strewn all across the covers, and her lips were petal pink in the dawn light. He felt himself wanting to tangle his fingers in that hair, and trace the delicate jawline down to those lips. She must have heard his thoughts, because as he turned away to shut the curtains, he heard a sleepy mutter of "Mamochan?" behind him.

This was quickly followed by a horrified cry of "WHAT HAVE YOU GOT ALL OVER YOU?"

Right, he thought. Shower first.


End file.
